


I Don't Want You to Be Alone

by Asukachan07



Series: Romanogers series [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Black Widow - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Captain America - Freeform, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends With Benefits, Happy Ending, If You Squint - Freeform, Natasha deserved better, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Steve Rogers, Romanogers is Endgame, Steve is not a douche, Steve's shield, Timelines, Wedding rings and necklaces, Work partners to life partners, romanogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 20:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: TDW! Thor gets his hammer back. All this time, Sif had been on an assignment to catch a thief!Yes, this is a Romanogers fic.





	I Don't Want You to Be Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post whose author I cannot remember, sorry!  
> The theory was that it's not clear that Steve married Peggy since they only showed them dancing, and neither had a wedding ring on. That would explain why Steve refused to tell Sam who his wife was, because if it had been Peggy it would be obvious and Steve wouldn't have to hide anything.
> 
> This meant that Romanogers could still be Endgame. It definitely is in this one-shot.
> 
> Unbeta'd, sorry for any annoying mistakes.

 

Steve jogged as silently as he could across the halls of the Asgardian palace. The buzzing feeling he was getting from Mjolinir made him want to go even faster, but he forced himself to remain calm and vigilant lest he got caught, a mortal from ‘Midgard’ sneaking into the abode of false but still long-lived and powerful gods.

That place was huge, and covered in gold. It vaguely reminded Steve of Vatican City.

Years ago, after a brief but brutal mission with S.H.I.E.L.D. that had left him raw and disgusted in humanity, Rogers had taken advantage of being close to the headquarters of the Catholic Church to step foot in a cathedral for the first time in over seventy years. After what he had seen and lived through, his faith would probably never be as strong as his mother had always claimed it could be, but he’d hope to find some comfort in being in the supposed presence of God.

Only, instead of finding peace, he had been distraught by the wealth and beauty around St. Peter’s square, by the gold lining the arches framing the dome of St. Peter’s basilica. Once his awe at the beauty of the architecture had subsided, Steve had felt insignificant and helpless in the face of all of that history standing in its glorious, golden glory.

He felt similarly small as he sneaked around a corridor of Thor’s home, whose history was even older than christianity. He evaded the attention of women dressed in fine and airy silk gowns, servants whom Steve would’ve taken for noblewomen had they not carried trays of food.

The room where Thor had instructed Steve to find Dr. Foster was empty, but he delicately removed the Aether from the briefcase using the special glove Bruce had worked on for weeks, and deposited the reality stone on the polished wood of her vanity.

“Captain Rogers?” Thor’s voice resonated from the door Rogers had left slightly ajar but blocked with Mjolnir.

Of course, Thor had been able to move his own weapon. Steve spared a second to marvel at how quiet and agile Thor - known for his brashness and overbearing strength - could be.

Sighing, Rogers turned around, uncomfortably aware of the scrutinizing gaze of this younger version of his Avenger teammate.

Thor, his hair longer and his right eye still blue, gave him a puzzled look as he absentmindedly ran his fingers along the handle of his hammer, remaining silent before he took another step in the room, his gaze then falling on the Aether.

“You’re the one who extracted it from Jane, then? How?” Thor asked cautiously, his forehead creased in a frown.

“It’s a long story…” Steve chanced with a tense smile. “Which I unfortunately cannot tell you, Thor.”

The then prince of Asgard looked Steve up and down, clearly intrigued by his darker suit - at least Steve had shaved the beard - before he belted Mjolnir and stepped toward the ceiling-high glass doors leading to the balcony.

Steve watched Thor’s cape billow out behind him, and felt his chest tighten up in grief for his friend.

While this Thor from 2013 had everything in his life still intact - bar the trust of his brother - Thor in Steve’s timeline had lost everything. His parents, his brother, his hammer, his planet, and even his crown, though willingly given away. In the span of 10 years - which Rogers understood was nothing to such long-lived beings - Thor had lost everything dear to his heart.

“Will you be able to return safely to Midgard?” Thor simply asked, turning halfway to Steve with a reassuring smile.

“I’ll manage,” Steve answered quietly with a nod.

He saw Thor slip his hand through his tunic and bring out a tiny disk, which he extended to Steve.

“I wish you safe journey, my friend, but just in case,” Thor said as he slightly waved the object at him, and Rogers took a deep breath before taking the offered object.

There was a tiny button at the center of the disk, which looked heavier than it looked.

“It is an interplanetary tracker,” Thor explained as he turned back to facing the view on some beautiful garden below. “It will activate after you press the button twice, and you’ll need to press it again every time you change location.”

“Thor,” Steve started, though he didn’t know how to reassure his friend from the past that he didn’t need help.

“Times are changing, Steven,” Thor interrupted. “There are forces at play that even the Allfather hesitates to discuss with me. I’m afraid that my brother’s involvement with the Chitauri is only one side of the larger plot of an unknown yet powerful enemy.”

The Asgardian sighed, then smoothly turned on his heels to face Steve, his sky blue eyes warm with sincerity and determination.

“I myself might not be able to come to your aid if you or any of our friends on Midgard needs assistance,” the Asgardian prince admitted, “but rest assured that I will send the very best of Asgard’s warriors to intervene if I cannot come in person.”

“Thank you, Thor,” Steve said immediately to appease his friend so he could move on with his mission.

He still had the soul stone to return.

“I have to go,” Steve announced after silence returned to the luxurious bedroom.

“Until next time, my friend,” Thor told him with a nod and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Of course, Thor was not stupid. Steve knew that the Asgardian knew that something was wrong. He probably also knew that Steve was from the future, because to 2013 Thor’s knowledge Earth had not mastered space travel, that had been clear when he had fought alongside the Avengers against his brother and the Chitauri.

Yet, Thor was letting him go without asking him all the questions he most likely had, only offering his help as he would do in any timeline.

Hoping that one day he would indeed see his own Thor again, Steve nodded before slipping out of the guestroom, tucking the disk into a pocket of his uniform.

 

* * *

 

“Steven Grant Rogers, son of Sarah Rogers.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Steve whispered through gritted teeth.

Red Skull. Johann Schmidt. Or whatever was left of him. Steve had the urge to throw the briefcase at that hateful face, but it was clear that his body was intangible

To think that this was the "guide" to the soul stone that Clint had talked about! Of course neither him or Natasha could've recognized the Nazi leader Steve had fought in WWII. And while Schmidt had vanished from the face of the Earth, many of his followers had escaped justice.

Beyond their role in the second World War, Schmidt’s followers had infiltrated S.H.I.E.LD., and decades later had reduced Peggy’s organization to ashes.

It had taken all of Steve’s willpower not to warn Peggy herself when he had talked to her in 1970 to return the Tesseract in Howard Stark’s lab.

She had looked so beautiful and youthful still, and had Steve not seen the ring hanging off the chain around her neck, he would have stolen more Pym particles to return to 1945. He had been tempted to live for himself, to reward himself for his years of service with Peggy, a white picket fence, two children, and maybe a dog.

But he had contented himself with finally getting his dance, and embracing Peggy one last time. It had been time to accept his fate and move on.

The Avengers had been his family. They had been his home, and he still had Bucky and Sam and Wanda in 2023, while Natasha, who had kept looking for Thanos long after Steve had given up, had died with nothing to her name, unlike Tony who had Pepper and Morgan to carry on his legacy.

If Natasha didn’t deserve a happy ending, neither did Steve.

So it was with a heavy heart but his shoulder down and his head up that he had left Peggy in 1970, and gone to Asgard in 2013.

“What an unexpected reunion, Captain America,” Red skull said, though his voice was devoid of any hatred or challenge.

“You’ve come to return the soul stone,” the ghost guessed. “It should not be surprising, that while others would seek its power for themselves, you want no part in the glory it could bring you.”

“Shut up and point me in the right direction,” Rogers ordered harshly.

He had to take a calming breath before jumping down the cliff, where Red Skull had smoothly glided over, his ethereal motion making no sound amidst the low rumble of the planet.

As he shook out his legs, bone micro-fractures healing as he looked around him, Steve wondered if Vormir had been a beautiful planet once.

“Here,” Red Skull instructed as he pointed down, and Steve frowned at the water that had appeared out of nowhere, already reaching his calf and rising.

Even from the dark surface Rogers could see some type of submerged altar, and after glaring at the ghost of his former enemy, he dived into the water to reach it.

As he suspected, Steve had to actually swim down to the stone surface, which was not smooth as he had first thought but was carved at its center - where the body of the sacrificed life was supposed to rest, maybe.

Tiny bubble rose around the altar and Steve almost gasped in shock as metallic prongs protruded from the center of the altar, perfectly sized to hold the soul stone.

With a few more kicks of his legs, Steve reached the altar, and carefully slotted the soul stone in place.

Then suddenly, Steve Rogers, who since the serum could hold his breath underwater for fifteen minutes, ran out of air and too quickly fell unconscious on an alien planet.

 

* * *

 

“...Eve! Steve, wake up!” Natasha’s voice, uncharacteristically panicked, called out.

Steve reached out and grabbed the hand shaking his shoulder before he even opened his eyes, and was overwhelmed with an inmensurable sense of relief at the sight of his best friend and team co-leader.

“Steve?” Natasha said his name again, and this time her voice was steadier. “What happened? Where’s Clint?”

Rogers looked around, and saw that they were back on the cliff, Red Skull nowhere to be seen.

He gazed back at Natasha, at the slight furrow between her eyebrows, at the bleached end of her braid while the rest of her hair held its natural color, and at the brightness of her eyes, clear as the water of a pristine island.

He gazed at her beauty and took a moment to admire her strength, her resourcefulness, her generosity, her loyalty, her resilience.

Then Steve felt the urge to smack himself in the head for not being satisfied with being with Natasha all these years. How could he have contented himself with that ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement they’d had - which they had stupidly termed ‘doing laundry’ because that first time Steve had allowed himself to seek out comfort in her arms he had been crying while doing laundry - when they could have had a true relationship, when they could have simply added another layer to their partnership?

Looking at her now, her breathing still erratic from the fear of losing him, her presence solid against his body, feeling _real_ and _alive_ to his still half-muddled mind, Steve couldn’t help but chuckle at his _stupid_ before bringing her head down to kiss her breathless.

She actually huffed in amusement after they parted, but her face quickly turned serious as she slid a hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder.

“How long?” she asked quietly, her voice not quite as neutral as she had likely hoped for.

“Three months,” Steve replied, immediately following her line of thoughts.

And with renewed grief for Tony, Steve recounted everything that had happened since Clint had returned from Vormir without her.

The more he told her, the tighter her grip on his shoulder got, but it didn’t bother him the least, not when she had impossibly come back to life.

Steve guessed that returning the soul stone had released Natasha’s soul. Of course, it made sense now, he should have thought of that when Bruce had mentioned trying to bring her back.

But Bruce’s words had suggested that her death had been final, so he hadn’t prepared for her to return to 2023 with him.

“What’s wrong?” Natasha asked after he fell silent, trailing off from telling her about Bucky and Sam becoming roommates.

“I only have enough Pym particles for one trip back to 2023,” he told her dumbly, his eyes wide at the realization.

“Oh,” Natasha reacted, her grip finally loosening up on his shoulder, and her hand found its way to the back of Steve’s neck as she pressed her forehead to his.

“It’s okay, Steve,” she said without any inflection in her voice.

“No,” he deadpanned just as flatly, his brief rejection surprising her for a change.

“I already chose to die here, I chose to stay,” the former spy reminded him.

“I said no,” Rogers insisted, and he suddenly remembered something she had told him many years ago.

“I don’t want you to be alone,” he blurted out before she could argue again. “And I won’t leave you alone here. I can return to 2023 anytime. That leaves us a whole lifetime to do whatever we want. Together.”

Natasha’s beautiful eyes widened for a heart beat, then gazed at him with so much tenderness that Steve surged to kiss her, just so he could close his eyes and not remember every single time he had caught her staring at him with that expression. Just so he could ignore all the times he had thought that she was off-limits.

And when he laid sideways on the ground, flushed to her body, his arm pillowing her head from the uncomfortably rocky ground of Vormir, Steve was too overwhelmed by emotions to inform her that they at least had a way out of this planet.

 

* * *

 

“Where’s Lady Natasha?” Lady Sif asked Steve, who was frowning at the price of the necklace he wanted to buy for his wife.

Even though getting simple gold bands as wedding rings had been inexpensive, he still didn’t have enough to both reserve a hotel suite and get her the gorgeous star-shaped pendant as a wedding gift.

“Gone back to see that famous blacksmith,” Steve replied as he looked at Thor’s friend over his shoulder.

Lady Sif of Asgard had been the one to find him and Natasha when he had activated the tracker 2013’s Thor had given him. The Asgardian Warrior had been on a mission to apprehend a thief when she had received the signal.

It had taken her weeks to reach the two Avengers, whom she had recognized right away from recounts of Thor’s battle against Loki and the Chitauri on Midgard.

Grateful to leave their survival habits behind - eating worms and other less identifiable arthropods, drinking from the dubious water at the bottom of the cliff, making love with their clothes on against the softest but still rough boulders of the planet - Steve and Natasha had gladly kept Lady Sif and a few Einherjar company while they pursued the criminal Odin seemed bound on punishing. The mission had taken them months to complete, and they had visited many galaxies in that time frame.

In the end, it was Natasha who caught Tragn as he tried to rob a wealthy businessman on a still intact Xandar. The Nova Corp paid her his bounty, a modest amount of money that the businessman quadrupled as a token of his gratitude for returning a family heirloom.

Surprisingly, after splitting the money with Steve, Natasha had spent all her share into some commission she had made with a dwarf, who was the most famous old school blacksmith in this very modern corner of the universe. Steve had assumed that she wanted simple daggers, not just the convenient gadgets they could find at any licensed weaponry that was under the supervision of the Nova Corp.

“Dwarves who live outside of Nivadellir tend to be duplicitous, I hope that she’s not carrying all her currency with her,” Lady Sif warned as she scanned the crowd.

“I wouldn’t worry about Natasha when it comes to duplicity,” Steve said as he turned back to the expectant owner of the jewelry stand, shrugging before he gave her his whole pouch of silver coins in exchange for the pendant.

Now that Lady Sif had Tragn in custody, she was ready to return to Asgard, and happy to drop Steve and Natasha wherever they wanted to go on Earth.

They had decided that Russia would be the safest bet. The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D/Hydra wasn’t due for another year, which meant that they had time to look for information on Natasha’s parents, now that she had a name to look for.

Then they’d have time to intercept Zemo and to find Bucky right after the helicarriers incident. And since Wakanda was still an unknown variable on the international front, they could contact T’challa and ask for his help to clear Bucky’s mind from all the lingering brainwashing before laying low somewhere else.

Then what? Steve didn’t know yet, and neither did Natasha, who had simply suggested that they stay out of the radar of the Avengers of this timeline.

It was clear that in this reality, the universe wouldn’t be wiped out by Thanos anytime soon - the Tesseract was safe in Asgard’s best guarded vault, still intact after the brief battle Malekith had led on Asgard.

Lady Sif had proudly informed the two stray Avengers that her queen, the Allmother Frigga, had single-handedly defeated the leader of the Dark Elves and won Asgard’s second victory on its ancient enemy.

The Aether had been shipped outside of Asgard for safekeeping, and the power stone was yet to have been found by Peter Quill. He unlikely would, as Steve had collapsed the chamber holding it after returning it to its orb. _Accidentally_ of course.

The time stone was back in the possession of the Ancient One, and would be passed onto the hands Dr. Strange in a couple years.

The mind stone might still end up on Vision’s forehead, but with Bucky and Zemo out of the way, the Avengers were more likely to stay united and fight together if Thanos tried to get his hands on it.

It warmed Steve’s heart to know that this timeline had all the chances to have it better than theirs.

“Hey Rogers, look what I got you,” Natasha’s voice interrupted his musing.

Steve quickly pocketed the pendant before turning around, his jaw dropping as he saw Natasha brandishing a damn good imitation of his shield.

“It’s made of some cool alloy that’s very close to uru,” his wife told him as she stepped closer, twirling the shield around in her hands. “The weight is slightly off, but I’m sure you’ll adapt.”

Steve heard himself laugh like never before, his joy and gratefulness threatening to overflow from his chest as he hugged his life partner, touched by her wedding gift to him.

He laughed even harder when, as he attached the star-shaped pendant around Natasha’s neck later that day, she joked that he should remember to get her the matching earrings for their first anniversary.

  


**Author's Note:**

> The Russos scammed me into watching Endgame with promises of great story arcs for Natasha and Steve, yet they changed the original story to kill Natasha for shock value. Screw them.
> 
> Feedback always appreciated!


End file.
